IN THIS LIFE

Virgil Donati

Jazz Rock/Fusion

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Killer album!Absolutelly stunning piece of true art,a wonderful display of the almost inhuman technical skills for this out of this world musician!Being a longtime fan of this killer drummer,I was absolutelly thrilled to hear thet Mr Donati has a new solo album!And,this too long wait plenty worth it!IN THIS LIFE is far superior,from the technical point of view,but also because of the elaborated compositions,so it's far superior to all PLANET X impressive albums!Why?Simply,because on this album Doanti is pushing his technical skills to some unbelieveble limits,showing that he is almost a human drum machine!The sound is perfect,crystal clear and the diversity of the compositions is very atractive!!!This man can play some math rhythms,polirhythms that are scarry even for the accomplished drummers,not speaking about the beginners,which must be thrilled about this man demonstrations of unbelieveble virtuosity!A hard to dig album,but a very enjoyable musical experience,both for musicians or fans of extremelly technical fusion!!!It's difficult to find something else more technical or spectacular than this album ,because it's damn exceptional and skilled!All the guys in the band are aces and the impressive list of the guests invited,means a new recomendation for an exceptional album!Fantastic album,amazing musicianship,top class fusion album-a milestone album under all aspects!5 stars for me!

Report this review (#1455229)
Posted Friday, August 21, 2015 | Review Permalink

Mellotron Storm
PROG REVIEWER

If you like your Jazz/Fusion heavy, then I'm sure your already familiar with Australian drummer Virgil Donati. He's an in demand drummer when it comes to this style of music, playing with the who's who of this sub-genre. I always remember when Derek Sherinian left DREAM THEATER to do his own thing, the first thing he did was to connect with Donati. And then after it was clear they had this chemistry together, Tony MacAlpine was brought in on guitars. And the result was Derek's first solo album. Interesting that Derek would keep Donati for his PLANET X project along with MacAlpine but brought in drummer Simon Phillips for his solo stuff which I do prefer.

"Virgil Cane is the name..." oops wrong Virgil. So Donati released what? Three solo albums in the 90's if you count his ON THE VIRG album under that band name, and three in the 10's. He's so busy with other people's music. My favourites are the ON THE VIRG one and then the "Just Add Water" album with Scott Henderson on guitar, and there was no keys on that one. Lots of keys on this 2013 recording called "In The Life". This is a little different from the 90's albums in that he's gone and brought in a lot of musicians for the different parts, instead of the more band efforts of the 90's.

This is a strong album that sounds amazing. Really punchy and heavy at times with riffs, but there's plenty of atmosphere created by the synths as well. Getting close to 67 minutes of music here over ten tracks. As usual we get a couple of talented Australian guitarists helping Virgil out in Brett Garsed and Simon Hosford. Nice to see Italian Marco Sfogoli here too, and he's the main guitarist. Virgil has played with some talented guitarists no? That "Live In London" disc for example which is a Steve Vai solo record is a great example. But there are many. We actually get some english horn and oboe on "The Fall Of Dreams" which was surprising, and cello on "Paradise Lost".

This is a consistent record despite it's length and a very solid 4 stars. It's hard even to pick out a few tracks from the bunch but the opener "Rhythm Zero", the closer "The Empire" along with "Trinity" might be slightly better than the rest. Slightly.

Report this review (#3059659)
Posted Friday, June 14, 2024 | Review Permalink

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